A virtual workshop that’s to dye for
MANILA, Philippines — When I was a teen I went through a short tie-dye phase where I would make my own T-shirts in rainbow colors.
Recently, I received a Shibori-making kit from local fashion house Maison Métisse, and it reminded me of those fun, freewheeling days.
Shibori is one of the oldest Japanese indigo-dyeing techniques, and the origin of tie-dyeing, according to Adrienne Charuel, founder and creative director of Maison Métisse.
“It actually started in the Edo period, which is in the 17th to 19th centuries,” she informs us in the introductory video to her Beginner’s Shibori Virtual Workshop. “At that time, Japan didn't really want to trade with the Western world. They wanted to protect their culture, their religion, so they were only really trading with the Dutch.”
Since Japan’s lower class was forbidden to wear silk, they had to find an alternative, which was cotton dyed with indigo derived from plants.
“Shibori was actually done out of necessity and for the lower class, so it was their way of making clothes during that time,” notes Charuel.
Now we can practice this ancient art in the comfort of our own homes with Maison Métisse’s virtual Shibori workshop. All the how-to videos are online so that when you buy the kit, you can access and watch them at your leisure.
The kit delivered to your house contains everything you need: two scarf lengths of white cotton, chopsticks, rubber bands, cable ties, a plastic strap, marbles, and two bottles of earth dye in tangerine and pink, which are sustainably mined from the soil.
Charuel sources these dyes especially from Japan, and they’re all natural and safe to use even without gloves, unless you have very sensitive skin. (Plastic gloves are included in case you do.) “You can even dispose of the dye in your garden, because there's no harmful ingredient in it; it's non-toxic,” Charuel says.
In her videos I learned the six most popular Shibori techniques. One is Itajime, in which you fold the fabric into pleats or triangles before clamping it between two chopsticks. The result is a beautiful lattice or oval pattern.
Kanoko is the most similar technique to tie dye, involving pleating or scrunching fabric and binding it with rubber bands or cable ties to get organic-looking patterns.
Ne-Maki involves binding round items of different sizes, like marbles, beads or rocks into the cloth to produce circles of different sizes.
The final technique in the workshop is Honeycomb, a non-traditional western technique perfect for beginners, which involves a meter of plastic tie that you just roll into the fabric, scrunch into a tight donut and tie together tightly. Depending on how you fold the fabric, you get a mirror effect when you open the cloth that looks like a honeycomb.
I chose to do the two Itajime techniques on one cloth, Ne-Maki and Honeycomb on the other. Or you can opt to cut the cloth into handkerchief-size squares and try all six techniques on each. They would make great gifts for friends.
The whole process took me about two hours and it was a really fun way to spend the morning. I loved working with my hands and the results were astonishing. After soaking the cloths in the dyes for about 20 minutes, I squeezed out all the water, took out all the bindings and revealed four unique patterns that made me appreciate another Japanese aesthetic — that of wabi-sabi — finding beauty in imperfection.
Now I have two unique scarves that I dyed with my own hands using an ancient Japanese technique that allowed me to travel back in time. That is a truly rare experience in the fast-paced world of fashion.
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You can order your own kit for the Beginner’s Shibori Virtual Workshop at www.maison-metisse.com.
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Follow the author on Instagram @theresejamoragarceau and @thebeautytraveler_ph.
